Frugal and Frills

Frugal and Frills Update: I Shifted My Focus To Reels And 2x'd My Income

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Asia Crawford

Founder, Frugal and Frills

$3K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Frugal and Frills

frugalandfrills.com

from Vancouver, BC, Canada

started July 2018

$3,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Asia recommends to grow your business!

Want more updates on Frugal and Frills? Check out these stories:

1. How I Started A $2.5K/Month Blog About Motherhood, Life And Travel (2020) ➜

This is a follow up story for Frugal and Frills. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 4 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

Hi!! My name is Asia and I am a Motherhood and Travel Content Creator and Blogger! I am the wife to a super supportive husband of 7.5 years and together we have two little girls aged 6 and 4.

I have been blogging and creating content now for 4 years. I started in July 2018 as I wanted a creative outlet that would be fun but bring in some extra income. A few years ago I was interviewed for my first starter story which you can read here.

As previously mentioned, the goal of creating this business was to generate income to contribute to the family bills on top of my other work-from-home part-time job. I never expected since the last time I was interviewed for my starter story that I would double my income since then.

Even though COVID and all the ups and downs that brought, 2022 has been my most profitable year yet and the year of so many amazing experiences I never could have imagined.

Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

Like any business, there are always ups and downs. For Frugal and Frills, as I said, it has been my most profitable year, I was able to more than double my revenue from last year because I took some time to focus on the quality of my work.

With that being said, because I spent more time focusing on Instagram and less time writing articles, my pageviews dropped on my blog as did my pageviews on my Pinterest. However, I wasn’t concerned about that because something new was hitting the scene I saw potential residual income opportunities.

Through COVID, TikTok really took off and I was learning that there was a good opportunity here to be creating the same content as Instagram, and also get paid through that platform. So, I switched my focus to mainly focus on those two platforms instead of so many at once.

One of my Facebook Reels reached 4.3M views which were cool to see.

With Instagram, there have been numerous changes to the way they want their platform to look. 2022 was the year of Video it seemed. It almost felt like we had no choice, if you wanted to create a somewhat successful business on this platform, you had to adapt to these changes. And that’s what I did. I focused and shifted my creations to mainly video and in turn, I had multiple viral reels which helped grow my audience organically and continue to build an authentic audience!

It truly is so hard to grow organically on such a saturated platform but Reels really was the new way to grow your business so I just made that my big marketing goal. Studying what my community wanted, and tailoring my videos for them ultimately helped with my growth after it being stale for a while. A few examples below of the accounts reached:

One of my Facebook Reels reached 4.3M views which was really cool to see

What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

One of the biggest challenges is staying relevant and keeping my audience interested in what I am creating all while working through constant Algorithm changes and the direction Instagram is trying to go on an incredibly saturated app.

What worked in the past does NOT work anymore. Sometimes it’s hard to not think it’s something personal when your content kind of flops, and that can get super discouraging if you don’t keep a positive mindset that it’s just a number, and we don’t need to be defined by numbers or likes or followers, etc.

I see a lot of people get super bummed over the fact their reel only got 300 views and 20 likes… But if you think of hosting a party and 300 people came, that’s a huge turnout!! So it’s just adjusting your mindset. Adjusting my mindset and reminding myself to just HAVE FUN with what I am doing, I’ve learned to take that pressure off myself. And even with some “flopped” content I still have lots of partnerships coming in despite it. If you are still putting out quality work, I’ve found that brands still see your value.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

I think COVID was the biggest lesson learned over the past year. It shows just how fast situations can change and so for us and my business, it’s reminded me to not sweat the small stuff (i.e what I mentioned above with feeling defined by numbers). Truly enjoy and love what you're putting out and don’t be overburdened by what people think. Everyone will have an opinion, but if YOU love what you’re doing and what you’re putting out, it will eventually catch on!

Also just never give up and constantly evaluate and reevaluate what’s working and what isn’t. When I started noticing Video is what brands wanted, I took time off to learn some new videography skills. In doing that, I focused on my quality, took new skills, and put them into action which lead to my biggest brand deals yet.

There is ALWAYS something new to learn and/or skills to develop even further. Don’t stop learning!

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

I just want to keep improving the quality of my work. I have a goal of doubling my profits in 2023 just like I did this year, especially with inflation. I’ve also really tossed around the idea of putting together a course on everything I’ve learned and what’s helped me land big brand deals, travel deals, etc.

I honestly hope to still be growing and doing exactly what I am doing now and taking in all the awesome opportunities and experiences that come my way!

What’s the best thing you read or listened to in the last year?

Considering my main focus and stream of income is from Instagram, I would say Brock Johnson (@brock11johnson) has been super funny and helpful to learn all sorts of Instagram tips. He has lots of tips for CTA’s, what to do, what not to do etc… But he’s also very encouraging in keeping your focus on the right business strategies.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

Be Adaptable and embrace change. Constantly evaluate what’s working and what isn’t and what isn’t working, cut it out! Be authentically YOU! People know right away if you are trying to be something you aren’t. As mentioned before, never stop learning and growing!

And one of my BIGGEST pieces of advice is to TAKE BREAKS! You need to fully step away from the app or whatever you're using to take a break and take a breather. It’s how your creative juices start flowing again and how you don’t get burnt out and lose your joy in what you’re doing. It’s also OK to fail. If something just isn’t working and something is failing, that’s ok! Just keep going!